The tree is getting older.

With each new year we get older, smarter, wiser and understanding. Like a tree we change with each new season, beautiful and unique in each phase of life. The bark on a tree tells of its time, the weather it had to endure, and the pest or diseases it survived. Just like a tree we bear scars from different battles, struggles, pain we had to endure.

Psa 52:8

Mat 7:17

God likes to compare us to trees. He wants us to be trees that bear fruit. Not spruce trees, or pine trees. Those only bear needles. Sure they are pretty to look at, but to God- he prefers a fruit tree.

Mat 7:19

Mat 12:33

So that when we are really-really old, we wont look like this little tree. I hope each year we grow in beauty, in wisdom, and in love for our Lord and Savior.
"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.

They flourish like a palm tree.....

I always loved trees... Magnificent old oak trees, a willowy, white birch trees... Green, blue spruce trees or tropical, prickly palm tree... Our God is an amazing creator, if we want to count all the species of trees there are we would never be able to remember or recollect them all. On our honeymoon almost 10 years ago, my hubby and I spend a day wandering through the San Diego's many museums, art galleries, and gardens... there was a palm tree conservatory, that collected, if I remember correctly, about 50 if not more different varieties of palm trees... so beautiful, so tropical... A palm tree always reminds me of being on a vacation... spending time on a beach, with the warm ocean lapping at my feet.... the sun, the palm trees swaying in a breeze..

'The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, the Lord is upright, He is my rock..' Psalm 92:13

'Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers...' Psalm 1:1-3

So if we seek to do right, to live with integrity, to help others, to seek God... we will be like a tree growing by the water... we would not wither and die, but live and flourish like a palm tree...:)